“…the device’s biometrics really help it to stand out from the pack, with Huawei combining fingerprint-based security with a 3D facial recognition system…”

The cat is out of the bag: The fingerprint sensor of Huawei’s new flagship smartphone is under its display. The new Huawei Mate 20 Pro was officially unveiled in London this week, confirming weeks’ worth of speculation.

The sensor is one of a number of notable features of the Huawei Mate 20 Pro, with others including a rear-mounted, three-camera imaging system, a 6.4″ OLED display, and a high-performance Kirin 980 processors. But the device’s biometrics really help it to stand out from the pack, with Huawei combining fingerprint-based security with a 3D facial recognition system – a clear shot at Apple’s industry-leading Face ID system, which has replaced Touch ID on its newest iPhones.

It isn’t yet clear just how sophisticated Huawei’s facial recognition system is, and to be clear, it’s up against some stiff competition in Face ID, which uses infrared scanning to map a 30,000-dot grid onto the user’s face. But by combining it with an in-display fingerprint sensor, Huawei is one-upping Apple in supporting multi-modality, a stance that could appeal to more security-conscious consumers.

But Huawei is also one-upping a number of other rivals in putting its fingerprint sensor under the display. Such technology hasn’t yet been seen in any devices from Apple or Samsung, and there are still few competitors who have succeeded in implementing it. The technology is provided in this case by Goodix, which was also the supplier for the in-display technology used in the super-expensive Porsche Design Huawei Mate RS smartphone launched earlier this year, and has more recently seen its in-display technology embraced by Huawei rivals including Vivo and Xiaomi.

And with Goodix having announced a supplier contract with Samsung this past spring, the latter could soon be the latest big-name smartphone brand to add momentum to the in-display fingerprint sensor trend.